We continue to watch consistent church attendance shrink, and our desire to reach the lost is infected with a need for self-validation by growing our numbers at any cost. If we believe that God wants his church to grow, where do we go from here? What is the future of the church?Drawing from his 20 years and 15,000 hours of consulting, author Will Mancini shares with pastors and ministry leaders the single most important insight he has learned about church growth. With plenty of salient stories and based solidly on the disciple-making methods found in Scripture, Future Church exposes the church's greatest challenge today, and offers 7 transforming laws of real church growth so that we can faithfully and joyfully fulfill Jesus's Great Commission.

    Offering readers hope, encouragement, and the practical advice they’re looking for, this concise book by professor Donald Whitney outlines a simple, time-tested method that can help transform our prayer lives: praying the words of the Bible. Praying the Bible shows readers how to pray through portions of Scripture one line at a time, helping us stay focused by allowing God’s Word itself to direct our thoughts and words. Simple yet profound, this resource will prove invaluable to all Christians as they seek to commune with their heavenly Father in prayer each and every day.

    But moving beyond theory, Him We Proclaim provides examples of how this method applies to all Old and New Testament genres, from history and law to psalm and prophecy to doctrine and exhortation.

    or run?The time has come for evangelicals to reclaim the forgotten faith. And this means doing something many are reluctant to do. It means reflecting on the past to rethink the present and inform the future. It means thinking not just biblically and theologically, but also historically.RetroChristianity challenges us to think critically and constructively about those who have come before us and how that informs our current beliefs, values, and practices. This book will adjust our attitudes about evangelicalism, and will lead us along a time-tested path toward a brighter future.

    We are called to do the same. But evangelism can be difficult--even intimidating. With all the evangelism resources available, where should you turn to find advice on how to share the Good News with others? Robert E. Coleman says the answers aren't found in TV evangelism, easy-evangelism guidebooks, or the latest marketing techniques. Rather, he looks to the Bible, to the ultimate example found in Jesus Christ. For more than forty years this classic, biblical look at evangelism has challenged and instructed over three million readers. Now repackaged for a new generation, The Master Plan of Evangelism is as fresh and relevant as ever. Join the movement and discover how you can minister to the people God brings into your life.

    Where the world stresses the importance of success, Bird invites readers to embrace nine specific failures in the areas of our personal lives, our relationships, and the church. Why? Because what human wisdom deems indispensable is so often an impediment to our spiritual growth, and what it deems insignificant is so often essential to it.With compelling examples from the Bible and today, Bird paints an enticing picture of the counterintuitive, countercultural life that God wants for us. He helps readers delight in all of the ways that Jesus turned the world upside-down, allowing us to experience true freedom, not from our weaknesses but in the midst of them.

    But contrary to the prevailing attitude, might the Old Testament contain relevant and meaningful application for today? Renowned author and scholar Walter Kaiser shows why the Old Testament deserves equal attention with the New Testament and offers a helpful guide on how preachers and teachers can give it the full attention it deserves. Growing out of his teaching material from the last decade, Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament demonstrates Kaiser's celebrated straightforward exposition. Offering an apologetic for the Christian use of the Old Testament, the opening chapters deal with the value, problem, and task of preaching from it. Following a discussion of the role of expository preaching, Kaiser provides a practical focus by examining preaching and teaching from the texts of various genres. A final chapter explores the relevance of the Old Testament in speaking to a contemporary audience.Bible teachers, pastors, seminary students, and professors will appreciate Kaiser's practical focus and relevant applications. Additional helps include a glossary and suggested outlines and worksheets for expository preaching.

    After traveling the globe and speaking to thousands of churches worldwide, Paul David Tripp has discovered a serious problem within pastoral culture.He is not only concerned about the spiritual life of the pastor, but also with the very community of people that trains him, calls him, relates to him, and restores him if necessary.Dangerous Calling reveals the truth that the culture surrounding our pastors is spiritually unhealthy--an environment that actively undermines the wellbeing and efficacy of our church leaders and thus the entire church body.Here is a book that both diagnoses and offers cures for issues that impact every member and church leader, and gives solid strategies for fighting the all-important war that rages in our churches today.

    One of the best known classics on the work of the Christian ministry.

    The book includes discussion questions, an appendix for facilitating discussions, and a bibliography of additional resources.

    On the other hand, some preachers will preach from the Old Testament frequently but fail to handle it correctly, turning it into moralistic rules or symbolic lessons for our spiritual life. In How to Preach and Teach the Old Testament for All Its Worth, Christopher J. H. Wright proclaims that preachers must not ignore the Old Testament. It is the Word of God! The Old Testament lays the foundation for our faith and it was the Bible that Jesus read and used.Looking first at why we should preach from the Old Testament, the author moves on to show the reader how they can preach from it. Covering the History, Law, Prophets, Psalms, and Wisdom Literature, interspersed with practical checklists, exercises, and sermons, Wright provides an essential guide on how to handle the Old Testament responsibly.X

    With this realization, Steven Mathewson offers here a guide to applying careful expository preaching methods to popular Old Testament stories. Mathewson guides students and preachers through a ten-step process from text selection to sermon delivery. Mathewson then provides sample sermons and iinterviews of from five individuals, including Alice Mathews and Haddon Robinson. This book contains a number of pedagogical features-diagrams, figures, and two appendixes. Seminary students, professors, and pastors will appreciate this valuable tool for refining their narrative preaching skills.

    In the book of Acts, church plants begin with sharing the gospel. Planting churches flows naturally out of making disciples. Pastor J. D. Payne explains the process and stages of church planting, with biblical foundations and practical steps for planting teams. He provides a pathway for the multiplication of disciples, leaders and churches. Here are church planting strategies and activities that are simple, highly reproducible and can be implemented by ordinary team members, not just by charismatic leaders. This guide can be used for planting in contexts among any given people group, domestically or internationally. It is an ideal resource for teams to work through together as they follow God's call in their community.

    Somehow we have managed to lose sight of the prime directive given to us by Jesus to go and make disciples of all the nations. There is hope. We can still fulfill the great commission in this generation, but we will need to get back the power that spread the gospel across the globe in the first century. We will need to see multiplication of disciples occur among all those in the church. Cultivating a Life for God takes an in-depth look at a tool called Life Transformation Groups and explains how this tool can release the awesome power of multiplication in your Church.

    They listened attentively in Sunday school, made friends, and seemed committed. But one day, they quit. What happened? The Bible says we love God because he first loved us. So if we are not primarily teaching our kids about Gods love for us in Christ, we may miss our opportunity to capture their hearts. But what does it look like to teach a gospel-centered lesson? Show Them Jesus is an instruction manual for teachers of kids and teens written by a lay Bible teacher with 30 years experience